


The Inevitable Consequences of an Eight Inch Growth Spurt

by bramblePatch



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Fluff, Gen, Shopping, if a little ambiguous in timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-18 19:34:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28748547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bramblePatch/pseuds/bramblePatch
Summary: Fitzroy's wardrobe needs a refresh, and he has precisely one friend whose fashion sense he respects.
Relationships: Sir Fitzroy Maplecourt & Rainer
Comments: 16
Kudos: 55
Collections: The Candlenights Zone (2020 Exchange)





	The Inevitable Consequences of an Eight Inch Growth Spurt

**Author's Note:**

> A gift for m0nomercy on tumblr for the Candlenights Gift Exchange 2020 - I hope you had a happy holiday season!

Sir Fitzroy Maplecourt, Knight in Absentia to the Realm of Goodcastle, stalked across the crowded dining hall and set his plate down with a rattle. Planting his hands on either side of the plate, he gazed steadily across the table at Rainer, a theatrical gesture that was only slightly completely ruined by the ethereal crab that slipped out of the collar of his cloak, making Fitz yelp and scramble to catch Snippers before the familiar could land in his plate of crepes and almost ending up there himself. It was still, Rainer thought, a pretty good showing, even if the antics with the crab kind of spoiled the drama.

Still, it was the kind of drama that was pretty commonplace in the school’s dining facility, so barely anyone else took any note as Fitzroy scolded his familiar. Nearby, Argonaut and the Firbolg glanced in their direction, but no one else seemed to be particularly interested in what was going on at their table. Once the crab was secure, Fitz closed his eyes for a moment, taking a deep, centering breath, and then took another stab at dramatically leaning across the table and intoning, “Rainer, I have a _vitally_ important favor to ask you.”

This was, admittedly, a little worrying, Fitz being Fitz and Fitz being wrapped up in what Fitz was wrapped up in, and Rainer frowned as she nodded emphatically. “Of course, what do you need?”

“I need,” he answered archly, “for you to go shopping with me.”

Of course, if this had _really_ been life-or-death, he wouldn’t have raised the issue in the middle of one of the most heavily trafficked places on campus, but it still took her a little off guard. “I’m sorry, what?”

The half-elf seemed to have just about reached the end of his capacity for sustained melodrama; he sighed, shoulders sagging as he dropped into his seat and began idly poking a fork at his breakfast. “C’mon, nothing I have that’s worth wearing fits right anymore, after, _you know_ ,” he complained, waving a hand vaguely at himself. Indicating, presumably, his recent magically assisted growth spurt. “Alteration only goes so far. And you’re _easily_ my most aesthetically talented friend, Rainer, Argo manages to make swashbuckling look lame -”

“ _Hey,_ ” the genasi objected.

“- and I’m not entirely certain that what Master Firbolg wears qualifies as clothes.”

The Firbolg hummed thoughtfully. “This… is fair.”

“Do you two _mind_?” Fitz asked with a scowl, and then smoothly turned his hard done by attention back to Rainer. “I really ferociously do not want to go shopping alone, and I don’t know who else to ask. Like, Festo? I’m not _quite_ enough of a teacher’s pet to ask Festo and also I’m scared of where they might take me.”

Rainer giggled, and reached across the table to give him a comforting pat on the hand. “Of course I’ll go with you, Fitz. This weekend?”

“This weekend would be _wonderful_ ,” he agreed.

It turned out that asking Rainer was a good call, because Fitzroy could admit – if only to himself – that he knew jack shit about the area and if left to his own devices probably would have ended up just wandering around Last Hope for an afternoon getting increasingly frustrated with the lack of options, and Rainer had some really good suggestions as to alternate shopping venues. The town of Optimist’s Folly was a bit further afield, but well within range for a day trip. It was late morning as Fitz helped haul Rainer’s chair down from the wagon at the edge of a busy market district.

“Well. Hit the clothes stalls, and then find lunch?” Rainer suggested, once the chair was steady on the cobblestone.

“After you.” Fitz shrugged, and gestured expansively at the chaotic marketplace in front of them, trying to look gallant rather than just like he had no idea where the heck they were going.

She giggled, and darted her chair into the crowd with a lot more precision than really seems likely for such a large piece of enchanted furniture. He hurried to keep up, not wanting to get lost in the tangle of walkways and market stalls.

It turned out to be less labyrinthine than it had looked from the outside, and Fitz felt a little sheepish as he fell into step next to Rainer. She grinned at him. “So. What do you need, like, everything?”

“Everything is a pretty good assessment of the situation,” he agreed, and winced a little at the thought of the blow to his admittedly limited finances. “A little of everything, anyway.”

“How do you feel about second hand?”

There was part of Fitz’s mind that felt that a knight of his status oughtn’t be caught dead in a thrift store, and a rather larger part of Fitz’s mind that pointed out that none of his pants fit right anymore and he’d more or less lived in hand-me-downs most of his life. He shrugged. “Well. As long as the quality is decent, I suppose.”

“Oh, yeah, I know a place that has good stuff,” she assured him. “Assuming they’re here this week… oh, there!”

The tent she led him to didn’t have a sign over the entrance, and the walls were patched in a way that was _probably_ an aesthetic choice rather than a sign that they needed a new tent. Fitzroy had to duck a little to enter, but inside proved to be remarkably roomy – he wasn’t going to spend the effort to detect magic, but he was pretty sure it was bigger on the inside. Rainer beamed at the young gnome woman at the cash register by the door. “Hi, we’re looking for something in his size?”

The cashier cast a calculating look over Fitz, popped her gum, and pointed to some racks on the other side of the tent.

There didn’t seem to be much rhyme or reason to the racks, other than being sorted very generally by size and, for some reason, by color. Still, Rainer was right; they had pretty good stuff, with everything in good repair and most of it not actually hideous. Fitzroy frowned thoughtfully as he picked through the jumble of garments, occasionally pulling something out to get a better look at it.

“What do you think?” he asked, holding a shirt up against himself. 

Rainer looked up from where she was browsing a nearby rack. “Oh, yeah, that’s a great color on you!”

He nodded, and folded the shirt over his arm as he continued to look.

Eventually, after looking through that tent and then a couple of other stalls that Rainer pointed out, he managed to accrue… well, maybe not as extensive of a wardrobe as he would _prefer_ , but certainly more than he’d really hoped to get on his budget. Rainer had a couple of bags of her own slung over the back of her chair – a few skirts she’d been unable to resist, along with a very poorly mounted weasel skeleton that Fitz had been entirely unable to talk her out of at one of the more eclectic second-hand goods stalls.

It was, she argued, sad and neglected. Fitz was _pretty sure_ that it was well past the point of having any emotions, but he’d been having too good of a day to want to seriously argue with Rainer about skeletons.

Overall, a successful morning.

There were a number of small restaurants and food vendors along the edge of the marketplace, and Rainer didn’t hesitate to point out her favorite little eatery. Fitzroy staked out a table by the window - leaving Snippers sitting in the middle of it, which was probably unnecessary as they’d mostly missed the lunch rush and there were plenty of free tables and also, Rainer kind of had to doubt how much use the familiar would be against a determined table thief. Still, it clearly made Fitz feel like he was accomplishing something, so she waited patiently while he sternly instructed the crab to watch their seats.

Once he seemed satisfied that the little magical creature would do his level best to defend their table, he turned back to Rainer with a slightly sheepish grin and a small gesture of one of the bags he was carrying. “Could you order food for both of us? I’d like to, you know, make myself more presentable.”

“Yeah, of course. You eat chicken, right?” she asked. “The restroom’s just over that way.”

“Chicken sounds great,” he agreed. “You are an absolute treasure, Rainer, I’ll be back in a few.”

The food was – well, honestly, probably not any better than what they got at the cafeteria back at the school, but the change in venue was a very effective seasoning. As was Fitzroy’s good cheer, his obvious relief to get into clothing that wasn’t inches too short at every cuff. He chattered happily, pulling bits of chicken out of his sandwich and offering them to Snippers.

Finishing up her bowl of chowder, Rainer pushed the dishes away from her, and then turned to pull one of her own shopping bags from the back of her chair. “Oh, yeah, before I forget,” she said, although there was no chance that she was going to forget, “I found this while you were trying on waistcoats.”

Fitz looked up in mild interest, which quickly turned to delighted disbelief as Rainer pulled a cape from underneath the things she’d purchased for herself. She shook it out, a dark grey brocade with spidery, branching lighting patterns embroidered in white along the hem, and held it out to him; he took it from her, carefully, almost reverently. “Rainer, this is _amazing_.”

“I thought it would fit your whole thunder motif,” she explained, and took Snippers from him as he stood up and fastened it around his shoulders. As she’d hoped, it was just about the right length for him, and he swung his shoulders back and forth a little to set the fabric rippling around him.

“It’s perfect. It couldn’t be more perfect if I’d special ordered it,” he said, and then, a little hesitantly, “This _can’t_ have been cheap, Rainer. Even in the places we were shopping.”

It hadn’t been, particularly, but Rainer just shrugged. “Don’t worry about it! It looks really good on you.”

“You’re sure?”

“ _Yes_ , I’m sure,” she said firmly. “You need to have this cape, Fitzroy, it’s too good for you not to have it.”

He blinked, looking for a moment like he might object further, but then he just grinned and took his familiar back from her. “Alright. Thanks. You’re amazing – isn’t she amazing, Snippers?”

The crab made small crab sounds of what was probably agreement, and Fitz didn’t take the cape off the entire way back to school.


End file.
